I’ve now had an intercultural experience I never planned on and didn’t really want in the beginning: I went to the hospital. I don’t want to talk about the specifics, but for a period after just waking up this morning I lost consciousness and woke up with my head bleeding. My roommate’s gone for the weekend, as are all of the TCU people, so I called the Accent Center’s emergency number. Cristiana was on-call and helped me SO much. She and her boyfriend came and picked me up and rushed me to the hospital. After the hospital staff fixed me with five stitches (which now have to stay in for the next 8 days), they did some other tests that lasted the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon.
During the afternoon I was in observation and was in a room with a guy who was 53 and another who was 103! While the wait was kind of annoying (and actually relaxing), the 103-year-old kept asking the other guy about how the Fiorentina soccer team was going to do tonight. They also talked politics and WWII history. I’d like to say that I picked up most of it; but I really only understood about 20 percent of what they said. Either way, they were entertaining while I had to wait for the tests and the results. So, other than a splitting headache (which I can’t take Aspirin for — it thins the blood, which is something they don’t want) and some lost time and blood, I’m doing pretty good.
If you’re ever in a foreign country and have to go to the hospital: 1) make sure you’re wearing a t-shirt (mine was keeping pressure on the back of my head), 2) find a wonderful bilingual friend like Cristiana, and 3) think and pray a lot — they’re both therapeutic.
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